Feminist Art Curriculum: Politicizing the Personal via Cyberpost Activism
Open Access
- Author:
- Motter, Jennifer L
- Graduate Program:
- Art Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 27, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Dr Karen Keifer Boyd, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Christine M Thompson, Committee Member
Dr Irina Aristarkhova, Committee Member
Heather A Zimmerman, Committee Member
Dr Karen Keifer Boyd, Committee Chair/Co-Chair - Keywords:
- feminist pedagogy
PostSecret
critical emancipatory case study
informal learning
activism
cyberfeminism
art curriculum - Abstract:
- Exploring the theory the personal is political, this critical emancipatory case study seeks to empower women and disrupt virtual world discourses via women's intervention of voice and visibility in informal learning sites. Using critical emancipatory methodology, I worked with five women to develop strategic online social network participation toward goals of consciousness-raising, (self-) representation, community formation, and agency. Research goals are to develop pedagogical approaches to help disenfranchised women to understand, envision, and change their oppressive situations and build a sense of empowerment by politicizing their personal via online public display of experience-based activist postcard art and critical comment postings on PostSecret, and the National Art Education Association Women’s Caucus Voices, as well as on two blogs created as part of the study: Women’s Experienced-based Postcards and Women’s Issue-based Postcards. Participants, as PostSecret Community members, collectively generate knowledge in their online discussions regarding digitized postcards and informally learn about self and others by sharing perspectives and experiences that emerge from digitized postcards. Through this research study, I supported women’s envisioning of positive change in their lives by guiding their development of a feminist consciousness that led them to critically reflect on their lives and experiences, and to transform particular patriarchal habits that prevent their agency. The new media curriculum developed, implemented, and evaluated in this study afforded unveiling of women’s empowering and disempowering experiences, powerful diverse (self-)representations, and formation of empathetic and supportive communities, while promoting meaningful artmaking and critical contributions to virtual world discourses that led to positive personal, and potentially positive global social change. Interpretative qualitative analysis of the strategies inform recommendations of informal learning tactics via new media in order to promote equality through inclusion of visibility and voice, particularly for those marginalized in society.